The show must go on:

Yesterday was a very hard day for the whole cycling family. In fact the Giro riders didn't cope with the traditionally busy flat stage they had on schedule, but they had to face a long, tiring march in order to say goodbye to one of their friends, Wouter Weylandt, who abandoned the peloton on Monday afternoon.

Surprisingly, yesterday I managed to keep the tears in check until the riders reached the last km of the stage. I had resisted the terrible image of mrs. Weylandt kneeling down where her son died, I had resisted the sight of Ann-Sophie putting a red heart where her boyfriend abandoned this life, but that last km was too much for me to take. At that point, all of a sudden, I found myself crying like a baby together with Tyler Farrar, with Fabian Wegmann, with Davide Viganò, with the whole Leopard Trek and with the whole cycling family. Wouter's teammates looked so down that I would have liked to take a car and drive to Livorno just to give them a big hug. Farrar was a destroyed man, whereas the support of the tifosi really did move me.
My father decided not to watch yesterday race. He's as sensitive as me and at funerals we're always the first ones to burst into tears. I knew that watching yesterday stage would have caused me to cry, but I felt like I had to watch it. You can't watch cycling just when things are going well: you must watch it also on sad days like yesterday. It's on these occasions that cycling needs its big family to stay close and, being unable to watch the stage in person, all I could do was watching it on my telly. It was like watching a colourful, long funeral. 4 hours of procession, no coffins and the feeling that Wouter was there, together with the Leopard riders and with his friend Tyler. '108 presente', as thousands of people said during the parcours.
'Those who really die are those who remain in this life', Marco Pastonesi wrote on today Gazzetta. In my opinion, this is one of the big truths of human life. After all, what comes after death? Perhaps there's another life as a different human being; perhaps there's a Paradise where, I'm sure, Wouter has met his old friend Frederiek Nolf; or perhaps, and this is the most dreadful idea, after death there is nothing. Anyway I'm sure that, after a person dies, the people who suffer more are those who remain in this life. Those who'll have to go on without a son, a husband, a brother, a father or a friend.
'Those who die are those who remain'. Those who remain in this life and also those who remain still, blocked by shock and horror. It may sound insensitive but, in moments like this, the best thing to do would be to take the time to mourn the loss and then try to go back to normality as soon as you can. It's impossible to make it in a few months / years time, but it's the only way to keep on living.

This morning, Leopard Trek decided to leave the Giro. In this case there isn't a wrong decision: everything the riders would have chosen, it would have been right. Hopefully the boys will manage to find a bit of peace in their houses, with their loved ones near.
Also Sporza's commentator has decided to abandon the race, just like Tyler Farrar. Moreover, this was the last Giro for the race number '108'. In fact, the Giro organisers have decided to retire it as a sign of respect for WW Special.
If you want to do something concrete to help Wouter's family, on http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/leopard-trek-create-donation-account-to-help-weylandts-family there are some info about how you can make donations to Ann-Sophie and to the whole family of outer. They will have the toughest task in the future, especially because the surreal atmosphere of these days will soon be gone and they will finally be able to realise the gravity of their loss. May they have all the stength of this world, because they're really gonna need it.

As I said previously, the best thing to do in these cases is to try going back to normal life. Although I didn't know Wouter, the last two days have been pretty hard for me and, honestly, today I didn't feel like watching the Giro. But then I saw that the riders, although they were probably feeling much worse than me, were doing their best to honour the race, so I watched the last part of the stage. Here I'm writing some observations of mine about it.
First of all, it must be said that today stage was pretty dangerous. In fact the cyclists had to face some gravel roads and, as you all know, gravel can be very tricky (when I was little, I had some very epic crashes on the gravel road outside my house... ). Obviously safety is a very hot topic right now and some riders have complained for the difficulty of the parcours. However, I think it's too late to complain about the parcourses now: if the riders really didn't want to face the gravel roads, they should have said it before, when the Giro route was announced.
Anyway, I agree with Di Luca about the fact that road cyclists should race on roads, because they're not cyclocross riders and they're not mountain bike riders. If a rider wants to ride on gravel roads, he can go to Eroica. And the same goes for the Tour: if someone wants to race on cobblestones, he can go go to Roubaix. It should be up to the riders to decide whether they want to ride on gravel roads or cobblestones, it shouldn't be the GT organisers that force the guys to face such particular terrains!
Said that, we can go on.
On the gravel descents Nibali showed a lot of braveness, whereas Tankink clearly looked in troubles. Many riders crashed and the most unlucky guy was poor Tom Slagter. Surprisingly, his crash didn't occur on a gravel descent, but in an asphalt part of the stage.
As soon as I saw the Rabobank rider lying on the asphalt, I froze. 'Here we go again!', I thought. Saxo Bank and Euskaltel's mechanics were screaming and Tom wasn't moving and looked unconscious. Then, luckily, he started moving his legs and he started talking. He was immediately taken to the hospital, where he discovered he has broken his eye orbit bone and that he's suffered a concussion. Hopefully he'll feel better soon.
Some of the other riders who crashed were Cataldo, Kiryenka (he fell in a really stupid way), Millar and Vicioso. These last two riders touched wheels with one another and fell together. Not a very lucky Giro for them, since Millar has worn the Maglia Rosa on two of the saddest days in cycling history, whereas Vicioso has won the saddest stage ever. I don't want to imagine how he felt right after he had won, when his ds told him through the radio: 'I'm really sorry, Angel, but something very bad has happened...', making his joy disappear all of a sudden. The poor boy burst into tears as soon as he got to know about Wouter and no one will remember his stage win as a happy one.
However, the riders weren't the only ones who had problems on the gravel roads: Savoldelli's motorbike in fact got blocked in the middle of a gravel climb and he had to push it for a lot of meters. Before he had that problem, Paolo had mentioned a Vacansoleil rider who was 'cursing while riding' and another cyclist (Reda) who stopped at the side of the road in order to let the white dust provoked by the cars disappear. Reda didn't hop back on his bike as long as the white dust disappeared and I think this is a very funny anedocte.
Talking about the race, Martin Kohler broke clear of the peloton after 12 kms and he was caught with 11 kms to go: chapeau to him!
Niemiec was very good, Nibali was extremely brave, Tankink was very unlucky, Stetina showed he's a true cycling promise, Lovkvist said 'I'm here too!', Di Luca rode without saddle and John Gadret attacked very often. But in the end, the winner du jour was the skinny Pieter Weening from Rabobank, who won the stage and got the Maglia Rosa from Millar. He looked very enthusiastic after the finish-line and I'm very happy for him and for Tien & Marleen from Ride On! ;) Before closing this post, I have some quick communications for you all:
First of all, the girls at 'Bananas about Bikes' would like to create a little tribute post for Wouter Weylandt. Therefore, if you have pictures / supporter's stories regarding him, we'd be very happy to receive them and publish them in the next days. As you know, our e-mail address is bananasaboutbikes@gmail.com . Every contribution would be very much welcomed.
Still talking about the poor Wouter, I didn't answer the comments that some of you wrote about my last post because I think there's nothing to add to what we all have already said.
Third thing to say, in the next days I'll probably try to bring back some cheerfulness on this webpage: anyway, I want you to know that I'll always remember WW Special.

Pic 1 by Riccardo Scanferla; pic 2 by Bettini (Rabobank Orange + Giro Pink = No, not again!!!)

Astana and Rabobank's new kits plus random randomness:

I swear it: this morning I did try to go to school. Seriously. I did try to go to school, but then I was defeated by the ice and came back home. After all, this Fangirl doesn't want to break her neck on a cold and frosty morning, without even knowing what Team Luxembourg's kits will look like next year!
Really, what happened to me this morning was very strange. And also a bit funny, actually. Yesterday it snowed the whole day here in Bergamo but, since Bergamask weather knows that we people of the town and of the suburbs are work-addicted, before starting to snow it rained for some minutes. Therefore, the snow on the roads didn't become too much and Bergamask people could happily go to work/to school.

This morning it didn't snow and, since it seemed that there wasn't too much snow on the garage ramp, I asked one of my parents whether they could give me a lift to the bus stop (it's a pretty dangerous road from my house to it). They said 'yes' and so I jumped inside the family car happily. Too bad that my prediction about the garage ramp's conditions was wrong. The snow wasn't that much, but there was some very tricky ice there and so coming out of the garage was very difficult. We tried to go outside it twice, but failed both times. So I got off the car and started to run to the bus stop (I had just 3 minutes to do so). While walking/running I slipped a few times, risking to break my neck, and I arrived 20 meters far from the bus stop just on time to see my bus driving fast in front of me. I had lost it because I had been 30 seconds too late. Nervous.

After reaching the bus stop however I decided to wait for the next bus to come. It arrived and I asked the driver whether he was heading towards the place where I needed to go. 'Yes', he said. I thanked him for the information but, as soon as I went to sit down on a free seat, he called me back: 'Sorry but I shfifiufgyfdsh', he told me. 'Eh?', I replied. The man looked at me and went: 'I said I'm not jhnbvxchgvasdj. Have you ophidfagasdg?'. For the second time in 10 seconds, I hadn't understood what the bus driver was trying to tell me. I felt like a stupid. 'Sorry but I can't understand you...', I said, trying to look sorry for being that deaf. The man looked at me as if I was crazy and repeated very slowly, as if I was a patient of a mental hospital: 'I'm not going where you need to go. Sorry'. I looked at him, understood (it was high time) and got off the bus. 'And now?', I asked myself. The next bus was due to arrive in 30 minutes time. 'Enough time to freeze', I thought. So I called home, discovered that one of my parents was still there and reached them.

I managed to do so without killing myself (and it wasn't that easy!) and, when I got home, I realised that the situation was very bad. I had left the house 15 minutes earlier, but things outside the garage looked pretty much the same.

It eventually took us (me and my parents) 45 minutes to clean the road outside the house and at that point I had 3 options: 1) getting in the car again, asking to be brought to school and making my parents arrive way too late at work; 2) going back to the bus stop to get on the 8.30 am bus (which, considering the ice on the roads, wouldn't have arrived outside my school before of 10 am); or, 3) staying at home. Obviously, I chose the latter option (and don't worry, I studied for my exams :P).

Anyway, I've just realised that I digressed too much. Sorry.

On to cycling, the most interesting news of the last hours regard the teams presentations. Yesterday I found out that I'm going to lose Team Luxembourg presentation in January (I won't be in Italy at that time of next year), so in this post I'm going to talk about some 'kits news' regarding Rabobank and Astana.

Talking about Astana, the kit is pretty much the same as this year (although I already know that I'm going to miss the yellow sun on the front of the jersey). But what attracted my attention most, however, was the fact that Astana guys had to take Vinokourov as a model for the new kits. This made me wonder: who will model the kits of Team Luxembourg? Andy? Frank? Fabian? Jakob? Or Bennati? A wide range of choice, as you can see.

Btw, here's a picture dedicate to all the girls who are part of the 'Anonymous Association of Vino's Lovers'. Enjoy the view ;)Talking about Rabobank's presentation, instead, I liked the place where it was held and, to say the truth, I also quite like the new team cars.

Unfortunately, I don't like the new Rabo kits. It looks too old fashioned imo. Moreover, I think that Rabobank has kept the same jersey design for the last 3 years or so, therefore I didn't expect them to change it this year. What a sadness. Oh, and Fangirl is sure that this kit will also end up affecting Matti Bresche's sexyness.Uff. Also Denis Menchov didn't look that convincted during the kits' presentation, did he? Talking about Team Schleck, instead, Robert Wagner showed his new bike to the World through Twitter. I like the colour, but now I'm even more curious to know what the new kit will look like.

Let's wait for more news to come in the next days!

(Pic of Rabobank's presentation by Bert Geerts, pic of Vino by Team Astana, last pic by Wagner).